For the past 40 days, Ether (ETH) has trended modestly upward, respecting a narrow channel most of the fourth dimension. It enjoyed a brief rally toward $4,000 in the first week of September, but a subsequent crash brought the price into the ascending channel.

Ether price at Bitstamp in USD. Source: TradingView

In August, nonfungible tokens posted record-breaking transactions, clogging the Ethereum network and causing average transaction fees to surpass $40 in early on September. Although NFT trading book has continued to subside, new items continue to be minted every infinitesimal regardless of whether they're beingness traded.

On Sept.13, Cathie Wood — CEO of Ark Invest, a $58 billion asset manager based in the Usa — commented that Ark aims for a 60% Bitcoin (BTC) and twoscore% Ether resource allotment. Ark Invest holds relevant positions in Coinbase (Coin) and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) shares. Furthermore, Forest has been a long-time Bitcoin advocate.

Ether investors might have gotten lucky every bit one of the coin'due south largest rivals, Solana (SOL), faced a 7-hr coma on Sept. fourteen. A sudden surge in transaction book flooded the transaction processing queue, which brought the network down.

Another incident happened on that same twenty-four hour period after the Ethereum layer-two rollup network Arbitrum 1 went offline for 45 minutes. The squad attributed the reanimation to a massive batch of transactions submitted to the Arbitrum sequencer over a brusque period.

Bitcoin options amass open up interest for Sept. iii. Source: Bybt.com

These events indicate toward the importance of the ETH 2.0 upgrade, which will bring parallel processing and drastically reduce transaction fees. Curiously, Ethereum also faced a large invalid block sequence from a malicious entity. Nevertheless, the vast majority of network clients rejected the attack, making information technology unsuccessful.

As shown in a higher place, bears got caught by surprise, and 95% of put (sell) instruments were placed at $3,500 or lower. Consequently, if ETH remains above that price on Sept. 17, but $eight million worth of neutral-to-bearish put options will be activated on the decease.

A put pick is a right to sell Bitcoin at a predetermined price on the set expiry date. Thus, a $3,000 put option becomes worthless if ETH remains above that toll at 8:00 am UTC on Sept. 17.

The telephone call-to-put ratio reflects a balanced situation

The 0.95 telephone call-to-put ratio represents the small-scale difference between the $173 million worth of call (purchase) options versus the $181 million put (sell) options. This bird's centre view needs a more than detailed analysis that considers that some of the bets are far-fetched because the current $3,500 level.

For case, if Ether's expiry toll on Sept. 17 is $three,300, every call choice above that price becomes worthless. At that place will exist no value for a right to acquire ETH at $3,700 in that example.

Below are the four most likely scenarios considering the current Ether toll. The imbalance favoring either side represents the theoretical profit from the expiry. The data beneath shows how many contracts volition be activated on Fri, depending on the expiry toll:

  • Between $3,100 and $3,300: 2,100 calls vs. twenty,300 puts. The net result is $58 million favoring the protective put (bear) instruments.
  • Between $3,300 and $3,500: The internet upshot is balanced between bears and bulls.
  • Between $3,500 and $3,700: 17,600 calls vs. two,300 puts. The internet outcome is $55 million favoring the phone call (bull) options.
  • Higher up $3,700: 17,600 calls vs. ii,300 puts. The cyberspace result favors the telephone call options by $85 million.

This raw approximate considers telephone call options being exclusively used in bullish strategies and put options in neutral-to-surly trades. However, investors might have used more complex strategies that typically involve different expiry dates.

Minimal volatility is expected for this week

Buyers and sellers will face up small gains from a moving Ether toll to heave their returns on the weekly options decease. Whether or non information technology achieves $3,500 will be interesting — things could get either manner.

To put things in perspective, the ETH monthly options death on Sept. 24 currently holds a $ane.vi billion open up involvement. Thus, both sides are likely concentrating efforts for the next week.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and practice non necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading motility involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a determination.